Sleeping Less Than Seven Hours Raises Risk of Metabolic Syndrome

HealthDay News — Getting less than seven hours of sleep on a regular basis is associated with increased likelihood of metabolic syndrome, according to a meta-analysis published in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society.

Imran H. Iftikhar, MD, from The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus, and colleagues conducted a meta-analysis to examine the magnitude of the correlation between different sleep durations and metabolic syndrome. Data were included from 18 studies involving 75,657 participants.

The researchers found that, compared to the reference group with daily sleep duration of seven to eight hours, the odds ratio of having metabolic syndrome for short sleep duration (less than seven hours) was 1.23 (P < 0.001). For sleep durations of less than five, five to six, and six to seven hours, the odds ratios were 1.51 (P = 0.01), 1.28 (P < 0.001), and 1.16 (P = 0.02), respectively. On log of odds ratios, the coefficient of sleep duration was −0.06 ± 0.02 (P = 0.02). For long sleep duration, the odds ratio was 1.13 (95% confidence interval, 0.97 to 1.32; P = 0.10).

"Considering the high prevalence of the adult population in the United States who report habitual short sleep duration, our meta-analysis supports the idea that increasing sleep hours may represent a simple modification that may prevent the development of metabolic syndrome," the authors write.